Sometimes a patient tells me about a long string of horrible boyfriends/girlfriends/pets, and wants to know what's wrong with those people. Or they'll tell me how terrible their boss is, AND their landlord is, AND their chiropracter is, and how bad must their luck be to get stuck with this set of unreasonable people. Certainly this person may have horrible luck and be surrounded by dysfunctional people. Or you could suppose that the only common denominator is the complainer, so it's most likely that they are the problem. It's hard to tell when you're the complainer which one is true.
The other day I took all my bills from the past 3-4 months and calculated how much I've spent on utilities. I then sent out 1/3 of that total to my two roommates via text, asking them to pay when it's convenient. If I really cared about having a balanced checkbook I suppose I should get their contribution every time I get a bill, it's so much easier getting 3 or 4 checks over the year rather than 30 or 40 little ones. Everybody wins right?
I get back from work and find that one of my roommates has moved out.
I didn't make this realization at first. I thought the kitchen looked different, and found that we no longer had a big Vitamix blender. The protein on top of the fridge was gone. There is an extra key sitting by the sink. I went down the hall to the bedrooms and his is closed, so I knock. After waiting an appropriate amount of time for him to answer (ok, maybe a few seconds less than that) I open the door to find the room completely empty. Clearly he didn't go to work today, or else was able to move the entirety of his possessions over his lunch break.
Strangely, he had replied to my text about the utilities saying "ok." Why respond ok when you're going to flee the scene, presumably never to return? None of my further texts have been answered. I've considered being annoying and sending him reminder texts every day that he's a thief. I can't say I've completely ruled it out.
Now I suspect if Clayton Thomas and I were BFFs, he wouldn't have stolen $400 from me. It's possible he's a sociopath and that wouldn't have made a difference. But if I'd gone through the effort of talking to him more often and maybe even doing things together, it's at least less likely he would have felt ok doing that. I wouldn't attribute any blame to myself if this were the first time this happened. But I've had another roommate owe me money, and after I left the state and didn't see him any longer, he didn't ever feel the need to send that check in the mail. Another more recently decided he couldn't afford paying rent so moved back in with his parents, owing me a significant sum. He did end up paying me, 6 months later, only many MANY a reminder.
Another two moved out with very little notice, though they seemed to have legitimate reasons for doing so. And of course there's the one who moved his wife in with us. This could be because he wanted someone to talk to and I wasn't providing the interaction he desired. Or I could be positive and say he just couldn't stand moving away from me, even once married.
The two roommates I've gotten through LDShousing.net have both been inactive. This hasn't been a problem per se, apart from them being two of the financially irresponsible ones.
In any case, I have bad luck with roommates/ do something to make my roommates bad roommates. I'm not sure if getting married will fix this problem or make it worse.
